Facts Relating to the Arrest of Dr. Kalugin

“Very well … er … we’ll say you’re my late aunt’s lawyer’s clerk, and you’ve come all this way to deliver this important letter with news of her demise. You’ve also brought papers I must review and sign concerning her estate, so I’ve asked you to be my guest for a day or so.”

“Got it.” He made a circle with his index finger and thumb. “I’m a clerk. So, let’s go! Show me around the place.”

He surveyed the view in evident enjoyment as we crossed the headland toward the stockade. Everything pleased him: our villainous-looking Aleuts scraping a sea lion skin, the windmill turning on its low eminence, a field of pumpkins blazing red like harvest moons amid withering vines. “Hey, neat!” He elbowed me, pointing at them. “I guess in a couple of days you’ll have some swell jack o’lanterns, huh?”

“If these people had ever heard of Halloween, certainly,” I replied. “You must remember, Courier, this is Russian America. And 1831.”

“Oh.” He looked momentarily confused. “Sure it is. Sorry, I forgot.” He glanced down into the cove, where the stream flowed into the sea. “Gosh! What’s that down there? Say, is that a shipyard?” He ran to the edge of the bluff to look. “I don’t see any ships. Just some kayaks.”

“Bidarkas,” I corrected him. “We used to build ships. They fell apart. And our wheat gets Wheat Rust due to the winter fogs, and our Aleut hunters have nothing much to do because the sea otters they were brought here to hunt had unfortunately been hunted nearly to extinction by the time this settlement was founded.” I shrugged apologetically. “We don’t seem to be able to accomplish much here.”

“I guess not.” He gazed around. “But it’s so beautiful.”

I felt a glow of friendship toward him. “Exactly, Courier! Look about you. No one is hungry here, because we do manage to raise enough to feed ourselves. Everyone is working together in peace, regardless of race. The climate is mild. Could you ask for a better description of Paradise? If only we weren’t supposed to be making a profit!”

But he wasn’t listening to me. He was hastening ahead to look at the cemetery.

“I have to see Everything,” he shouted over his shoulder.

He was quite serious. He wanted to have the colony explained to him, from the gopher holes and plough-scored rocks to the flag atop the mast in the stockade. Then he wanted to meet everyone. Everyone, I say: he even reached through the bars in the jail to shake hands with poor little Fedor Svinin, the ex-clerk who had embezzled ten years’ worth of salary to cover his gambling debts. “You don’t say? Poor old guy!” He would have pumped hands with equal enthusiasm with Kostromitinov, the General Manager, had Piotr Stepanovich not been visiting our farm at the river. That was all right: he shook hands with all the local Kashayas he could find, who stared at him in mute incomprehension; he shook hands with every one of our Aleuts, who smiled politely and then wiped their hands on their sealskin shirts. Courier didn’t notice; he didn’t hold still long enough, leaping away to exclaim over some new feature of the settlement he’d just noticed. Everyone, everything enchanted him.

And really it was delightful, if a bit exhausting, to accompany someone who took such intense pleasure in the smallest details of mundane life. One saw through his eyes and the great trees looked bigger, the Indians more mysterious, the coastline more wild and romantic.

Though I must say I seem to have been the only one who enjoyed his company; Babin had already been talking to the other Russians about my mysterious visitor, and the ones who weren’t superstitious drew their own smirking conclusions about this effusive pretty boy. So much for my ever earning their respect.

Courier even approached Babin with his hand out, crying “Pleased to meet you, sir, my name’s Courier,” before Babin stepped back indignantly.

“By the Black Goat hisself!” he spat. “As if I’d want to touch the likes of him, after the way he cut up on the Polifem !”

Courier lowered his hand, looking hurt and bewildered, as Babin turned and stamped off. “What’s wrong with him ?” he asked me.

“He, er, formed rather a poor opinion of you, I’m afraid. Apparently. When you were fellow passengers on the Polifem, ” I explained. “There seems to have been some unfortunate incident—?”

“There was?” Courier stared after Babin. “Oh. I guess I didn’t recognize him, huh?”

No amount of hinting could prompt him to tell me just what had happened on board the Polifem, but I thought perhaps he needed a little more briefing on Russian customs before he’d fit in at the officers’ table; so when time came for the evening meal I arranged for two plates of venison stew and we carried them to one of the rooms kept ready for visitors. Courier took his tin dish and clambered onto his bunk with it, settling his back against the wall. He sighed in contentment.